What the Audio Research Reference preamp and amp can do in combination is preserve the way the colors of each of piano notes lingers just ahead of the note that follows, hanging their harmonics in space like a faint aural after-image between the dying off of one tone and the utterance of another. They “fill in the gaps” between and among notes more realistically than any other electronics I’ve heard. If bringing a new and unparalleled realism to the reproduction of the duration of notes were all that the ARC Reference 3 and Reference 210 did, they would qualify as some sort of hi-fi breakthrough. But that is not all they do. Not by half.


The review covers Audio Research's Reference 3 Linestage Preamp and Reference 210 Monoblock Power Amp.